On March 4, a
On March 4, a “documentary” aired on the Discovery Channel that claimed archaeologists have discovered the family tomb of Jesus of Nazareth.
I have had an opportunity to read the related book by filmmakers Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino titled
The Jesus Family Tomb.
The book describes the discovery and investigation of ten ossuaries (bone boxes) that were discovered in the Talpiot tomb in Jerusalem in 1980. Because several of the ossuaries contain names associated with the Jesus of the New Testament Gospels, the authors argue that the tomb is undoubtedly the family tomb of Jesus. The ossuaries purportedly bear such inscriptions as “Jesus, son of Joseph,” “Judah, son of Jesus,” “Matthew,” “Mary the master,” “Mary,” and “Jose” (a diminutive form of Joseph).
The Jesus Family Tomb
is written in the fashion of the Da Vinci Code. This book, however, is intended for the history and religion sections of bookstores rather than the fiction section. That alone will give the book more credibility in the eyes of many readers. Despite the overstatements and leaps to conclusions unwarranted by the data, many readers will view the claims as fact.
Although a detailed and carefully researched response to these claims will take some time to prepare, let me offer an observation on one aspect of the book.
The most compelling argument raised is that although none of the individual inscriptions is remarkable, the combination of so many names associated with Jesus is so unexpected that this must be Jesus’ family tomb. The team initially insisted that the probability of these names associated with Jesus of Nazareth all appearing in one tomb was 1 in 2.5 million (a figure later reduced to 1 in 600 due to criticism from expert statisticians). Several factors account for this calculation: the false assumption that Mariamne is Mary Magdalene, the assumption that Jose refers to the brother of Jesus, and the assumption that Maria was Jesus’ mother.
First, Mariamne is clearly not Mary Magdalene. Second, the possibility that this Jesus had a relative named Mary does not increase the probability that this Jesus is Jesus of Nazareth. The name Mary was the most common name for females in the period ranging from 330 B.C. to 200 A.D. The researchers claimed that 1 out of every 4 Jewish women in Palestine during the ossuary period were named Mary. Consequently, 1 out of 760 Jewish men in Palestine during the period of ossuary use were named “Jesus, son of Joseph” and had a mother named Mary. However, unlike the Jesus ossuary which specifies the nature of the relationship of this Jesus to Joseph, the nature of the relationship between this Jesus and this Mary are unknown. This Mary could have been his mother, aunt, sister, sister-in-law, or close female cousin, he probably had several close female relatives with the name Mary. If any Palestinian Jewish male of the period had 12 close female relatives, 3 of these close female family members were probably named Mary. Consequently, the presence of a Mary in this tomb does not increase the probability that the Jesus of the ossuary is Jesus of Nazareth.
Third, Jose is a shortened form of Joseph. Joseph or Jose is the second most common male Jewish name from this period. The researchers calculated that 1 out of 20 Jewish men were named Joseph or Jose. Assuming the family tomb theory, the probability of any person having a close male relative named Jose was quite high. Thus the probability was 1 in 4 that this Jesus would have a close male relative named Jose. The probability that a Jewish man in Palestine during the ossuary period would be named Jesus, son of Joseph, and have close family members named Mary and Jose is 1 in 760.
The likelihood that the Jesus of the ossuary is Jesus of Nazareth though is made doubtful by one important consideration. If Jose were the brother of this Jesus, then one must explain why Jesus was identified as “son of Joseph” but Jose was not. The lack of the “son of Joseph” description significantly decreases the probability that Yeshua and Jose were siblings.
Since the probability of bearing the name Jesus, son of Joseph and having close relatives named Mary and Jose was 1 to 760 and since the male population of Jerusalem during the period of ossuary use was at least 80,000, somewhere between 56-105 male Jews in Jerusalem would have met the criteria of the Talpiot tomb. Thus, even if one rejected the New Testament claim that Jesus of Nazareth’s body was resurrected, the probability of this tomb containing his remains would be 1 in 56 to 1 in 105.
In other words, it is 56 to 105 times more likely that this tomb housed the bones of a Jesus other than Jesus of Nazareth than that it contained the bones of the Jesus of the Gospels.
The statistical argument does not prove that the Jesus of the ossuary is Jesus of Nazareth. On the contrary, it is much more likely that this Jesus is another Jesus
Let’s “make no bones about it,” the bones in the Talpiot tomb were not the bones of Jesus of Nazareth.
(This is an excerpt from an extensive article by Quarles. Read it in its entirety at www.lacollege.edu.)